Walked today: 4.5 mi. Camino’26: 84 mi.
At the end of our walk to Cirueña, yesterday, Jim began to feel some pain in his achilles tendon. Then later on last night he continued to have some pain.
Thanks to a house-call made by Linda, our staff unlicensed medical practitioner, some KT tape and a 2 minute YouTube instructional video, a camino miracle was performed, allowing Jim to walk today without any pain in the achilles tendon region. Hopefully, by the time the bandage falls off due to wear and showers, the camino healing powers will have completed the miracle.
The walk to Santo Domingo de la Calzada is almost a perfectly straight line through the grain fields. We have often walked all or most of it in the dark to avoid the late morning heat, but getting lost was not a problem, because the path was the only place to walk. In this morning’s cool 52F air, we left at 7:00 with full light and overcast skies. Perfect for walking.
Usually when walking on the weekend, hunters and their dogs can be seen off in the fields and an occasional shotgun blast can be heard in the distance.
Today, the only activity we observed were a couple of hot-air balloons that appeared briefly, in and among the low hanging clouds.
The Catedral was not open so we kept walking. Saint Dominic is buried here as well as relics associated with his sainthood.
Dominic cleared roads and built bridges throughout this area making the pilgrimage safer and easier for pilgrims during the 11th century. He also performed miracles that saved the life of a young, falsely accused pilgrim and brought chickens back to life in front of a local magistrate.
The distance from Cirueña to Belorado is over 17 miles. When we reached Santo Domingo de la Calzada, the remaining distance to Belorado was over 12 miles. After walking to Belorado on our first 4 caminos (2014, 2017, 2019 & 2022) we vowed not to walk that segment of the Camino Frances again. This was due to limited or no or unsatisfactory places to eat, stay overnight or get a break from the sun.
On our past three caminos we took a taxi from Santo Domingo to Belorado. Today, we figured out how to take a bus from Santo Domingo to Belorado. We took photos along the way from our seat behind the bus driver so you can see what we missed from our first 4 caminos.
La Huella is among our favorite places to stay on the Camino, plus it has one of our favorite restaurants. We love the service, food quality and the artwork on the plates.
Belorado seems to have a festival nearly every time we pass through, and today was no exception.
In 1116, King Alfonso I granted Belorado a charter to hold annual fairs, the first municipality in Spain to receive such, for the purpose of promoting its role as a trading hub and a resting place for pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago.
Today was the celebration of the decree, which is celebrated as Feria Alfonsina on the first weekend of June.
We walked among the revelers, briefly, to get into the “spirit” then stopped by a church on the way back to La Huella.
Adjacent to La Huella is Iglesia de Santa Maria
As you can see, today was a full and fun day on the Camino. We actually found time to do our routine chores, too. Time for this blogger to sign off.
Jimandi 